Patient enrolment
Experiments on Thai domestic dogs were carried out at the Prasu-Arthorn Animal Hospital, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University. Client‐owned dogs were recruited: 8 ageing dogs (age > 7 years), 4 adult dogs (age range 1-7 years) and 10 dogs that were diagnosed with CCDS. The exclusion criteria were brain diseases other than CCDS or concurrent medical problems that mimic signs of cognitive impairment. CCDS was classified according to the CCDR questionnaire rating score [28]. The study protocol was approved by the Mahidol University Animal Care and Use Committee (AICUC) (UI-01287-2558).
Blood sampling
Blood samples were collected from the cephalic or jugular vein into vials containing ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), and the samples were centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 10 min. Plasma was divided into 2 aliquots and kept at -80 °C. The first aliquot was used for the ELISA procedure, and the second aliquot was used for the proteomics study.
ELISA for Aβ42 detection
Plasma Aβ42 of all dogs in each group was quantified using specific sandwich ELISA kits for humans (Elabscience, Wuhan, China) in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions as described. Briefly, plates were incubated with 100 μL of sample or standard for 90 min at 37 °C. The liquid was then removed from each well. Biotinylated antibody was added to the plates and incubated for 1 h at 37 °C. After several wash steps, 100 μL horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-conjugated working solution was added to each well and incubated for 30 min at 37 °C. After repeated wash steps, the substrate solution was then added. Positive samples developed a blue colour. The reaction was stopped by the addition of stop solution and further measured at 450 nm.
Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE)
Prior to gel-based separation, plasma protein concentrations were determined by the Bradford assay (Bio-Rad, Benicia, CA, USA) at 590 nm with bovine serum albumin (Thermo Fisher, Waltham, MA, USA) as a standard. Protein samples in each lane were pooled from 4 dogs in each group. For gel-based separation by SDS-PAGE, 30 μg of protein was loaded on 12%SDS-PAGE. After that, the gel was stained with Coomassie Brilliant Blue R-250 (Bio-Rad, Benicia, CA, USA) and de-stained with 30% ethanol (Merck, Darmstadt, Germany) in 10% acetic acid (Merck, Darmstadt, Germany). The gel was then scanned using a GS-710 scanner (Bio-Rad, Benicia, CA, USA). The protein band was divided into 11 segments per lane according to size and chopped into 1 mm3 pieces. For protein identification, each piece was subjected to in-gel digested prior to being subjected to nano liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (nano-LC-MS/MS).
In-gel digestion
Gel pieces were de-stained using 50% acetonitrile (ACN) (Thermo Fisher, Waltham, MA, USA) in 50 mM ammonium bicarbonate (Merck, Darmstadt, Germany). After that, disulfide bonds were reduced with 4 mM dithiothreitol (DTT) (Omnipur, Darmstadt, Germany) in 50 mM ammonium bicarbonate for 10 min at 60 °C. Gel pieces were alkylated in 250 mM iodoacetamide (IAA) in 50 mM ammonium bicarbonate for 30 min at room temperature in the dark. The gel pieces were dehydrated 2 times in 100% ACN for 15 min and dried at room temperature. Then, trypsin (Sigma-Aldrich, St Louis. MO, USA) in 50 mM ammonium bicarbonate was added, and the gel pieces were incubated overnight at 37 °C. The tryptic peptides were extracted from the gels using 100% ACN. Finally, peptide mixtures were dried in a vacuum centrifuge to dryness and kept at -80 °C until further nano-LC-MS/MS analysis.
Analysis of peptide patterns by nano-LC-MS/MS
The extracted peptides were dissolved in 0.1% formic acid (Merck, Darmstadt, Germany) in LC/MS-grade water. Each sample was injected into the UltiMate 3000 nano-LC system. Three biological replications were performed. Peptide separation was performed on a C18 column. The flow rate was set at 300 nL/min. The elution occurred during the 30-min gradient from the 4% mobile phase B (80% acetonitrile in 0.1% formic acid) to the 50% mobile phase A (0.1% formic acid in water), and the eluent was infused into a microTOF-Q (Bruker Daltonics, Bremen, Germany). The mass spectra from the mass spectrometry (MS) and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) covered mass ranges of m/z 400–2000 and m/z 50–1500, respectively.
LC-MS/MS Data analysis
LC-MS/MS data files were converted to a mascot generic file (.mgf) format with DataAnalysis 3.4 version software. Mascot daemon version 2.3.02 (Matrix Science, London, UK) was used to merge the .mgf files and to identify the proteins against those in the NCBInr database (24 October 2019) specific to Mammalia as a taxonomic filter. Protein expression was quantified by peptide count analysis using the emPAI value provided by Mascot. Differentially expressed proteins in at least two of the biological replicates were reported as protein alterations in each group. Processed protein-level data were analysed through a range of software tools. A heat map was constructed using the R studio program. Protein-protein interaction network and functional analysis, based on GO enrichment, KEGG, and Reactome pathways, were analysed using online STRING software (https://string-db.org) at the default setting. The graphic of the proteomic workflow is shown in Fig. 6.
Statistical Analysis
Statistical analysis was performed using descriptive statistical procedures and software (GraphPad Prism, Version 5). Pearson correlation analyses were used to examine the correlations between the CCDR score and plasma Aβ42 levels. The statistical significance of differences in plasma Aβ42 levels between groups was determined with a paired, non-parametric Student’s t-test (p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant).